Old Habits Die Hard

Posted: December 15, 2013

This Full Moon occurs at 9:29 am GMT, between Mars crossing into the southern hemisphere and Uranus stationing direct. As such it unites the future thrust of Uranus turning direct with the old habits of a southern hemisphere Mars, creating a restless present of potential alongside impatience and possibility laced with self-sabotage. A heady mix if ever there was one!

Mars in the southern hemisphere, where he now remains until February 2015, reunites us with old habits which die hard and unconscious behaviours which trip us up by virtue of their effective camouflage. As much as Mars wants to push forward into the new, he now reminds us that the new is merely the old rehashed if we never get to grips with the changes needed to create a genuinely fresh present and future rather than a stale and oddly familiar one! In Libra as he makes this hemisphere shift, he reminds us that we are often most unconscious in relationships with those closest to us, where habits born of familiarity keep us locked into old patterns of thought, feeling and behaviour. His synchronicity with the full moon indicates a significant opportunity to commit to the release of these old habits once and for all in the coming months.

In Gemini, this moon is flexible and adaptable, but even this can be a liability if what we need is commitment and forbearance while old patterns fall away and new possibilities present themselves. It's great to be able to change with the wind when necessary, but if such flexibility is merely our way of avoiding commitment or stating our position on anything to anyone, it's just another way to deny the fullness of life by living it in half-light. Thankfully we have Venus in Capricorn to add her particular down to earth common-sense into the mix, reminding us that sometimes the best way in relationships really is through the challenge and out the other side rather than around the edge or off in another direction entirely.

These are potent influences around at the time of this Full Moon. They encourage us to consider what and how we communicate with those closest to us and what we really hope to achieve by those communications. Do we censor ourselves to keep the peace? Express our annoyance indirectly, hoping to get the point across without having to say it out loud? Is passive aggression the name of our game, or are we forever geared towards securing reassurance from everyone around us? Communication in all its forms is a deeply complex matter and this moon asks us to consider ours and what we really hope to achieve by it. Because with Uranus now turning direct there is change to be embodied and freedom to be embraced. Not the controlled freedom of surface peace and polite tolerance but the radical, boundary shaking freedom of radical truth and awakened authenticity.

Which is why the Moon and Mars are doing what they're doing right now, because without consideration of the past and an honest look at the present we can't change the future, we can only recreate what we haven't brought into full consciousness yet. And, quite frankly, we've done enough of that now. It's time to begin again and start anew, making 2014 the year we taste that freedom Uranus wants for us and which, in our heart of hearts, we want so much for ourselves.